When asked about one of the main characteristics that leaders will need to have in the Disruption Economy, Gerd Leonhard, likes to answer: “They should evolve from directors to connectors”. Business focused or socially connected? When organizations go through rough...

My duty, when coaching, isn’t so much about teaching leaders new skills. It is to help them identify barriers (that they had once appropriately erected) or understand the self-inflicted “coping strategies” (that once were useful), which have now become unconscious...

“What do President Obama, Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, and Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, former CEO of Nokia all have in common? All three had ambitious and laudable strategies (universal healthcare for the U.S.A., dominating the world software industry and dominating the...

NO! I did not fall in love with B.C.G. (Boston Consulting Group), BUT I must admit that, for the second time in a few weeks, a B.C.G. partner makes a TED-X speech that I find worth sharing with you! (brought to my attention by Jean-Pierre Fonta, heading a consultancy...

It has now been decades since globalization has become the norm for businesses reaching a certain size. Ever since, we have heard leaders explain how challenging the phenomenon of leading a “remote” or “virtual” team is. And in fact, it is. “How do I create an...

"Blessings for an engaged and impactful 2015!" were the wishes I received from our US partner, Bob Devlin. I found them original and in line with what we preach and believe in, at work. And my mind started to wonder: What kind of people will create engagement and...

A few months ago, my daughter and I were invited in Rome for a speech on my book. During our free time, we visited the “Eternal City”. We are not religious but have a strong respect for the believers, as long as they do not feel obliged to rape, torture and kill in...

I always loved this provocative “question”, symbol of contentment and leadership arrogance, that one of my ex-colleagues loved to use, in order to help well intentioned leaders realize that, maybe, they were part of the problem that they were complaining about… We all...

Maybe was it synchronicity? A dramatic article and a book, both having the theme of bullying in the background, were offered to me recently. In a November 2014 “The New-Yorker” article, Allen Kurzweil recalls the traumatic experience he lived as ten years old, in a...

Now, if even the "usual suspects" in strategy consultancies (who still hire people mainly on quantitative tests as far as they are concerned) are getting into the arena of Leadership Development and telling others how they should do it differently, this may mean that...

Following-up on last week’s provocative title (“If you wish to kill innovation, hand it over to R&D!”), here is another short clip from Jay Rao, who teaches innovation at Babson College. His logic should strike a chord with us all. Jay compares large corporations,...

It was almost a year ago (late December) when I wished us all a Happy New Year 2014 and expected to see you again by early January. And… my blog remained silent for ten months, until now. What happened? No terrible drama, no emotional roller coaster… Simply, as Joseph...

2013 is soon over… Thank God! I am now looking forward to 2014 as a year of reconstruction, in my private and professional lives. Many of you know my attachment to the powerful metaphor of the “Hero’s Journey”, based on Joseph Campbell’s work around the universal...

I was recently invited to help to facilitate a dialog in a team of remarkably intelligent executives. The team wasn’t dysfunctional per se, but difficult discussions needed to be made. The leader expected those to be intellectually challenging and emotionally tensed....

Those of you who sit in our transformational seminars, know the story. A long time ago, at the beginning of my career, I was sitting in a plane, next to a Citibank senior banker. I was a young consultant in strategy during the fashion wave of Business Process...